Like a roaring lion

Not too terribly long ago, a YouGov poll came out which asked the big questions. It asked, reasonably enough, which of the following animals you think you could beat in a fight.  An unarmed fight, Mano a Mano, so to speak. The animals are : Kangaroo, Eagle, Grizzly Bear, Wolf, Lion, gorilla, chimpanzee, king cobra, elephant, crocodile, goose, rat, house cat, medium sized dog, large dog. As you may guess, most people were confident in their chances against a rat. That size difference would come into play really early, I guess. But things fall apart a bit as you continue to read, where you find that 61% of American men think they could beat a goose (still believable), 30% of American men think they could beat an eagle (highly unlikely), and 17% of American men think they could beat a chimpanzee. Unarmed.

No you can't.

Those 17% of men are delusional. There isn't one man in a thousand, possibly one man in a million who would stand a chance against a chimpanzee unarmed. The injuries they cause are immediate and horrific, and anyone thinking that he can just go toe to toe with one is delusional. Shockingly, only 14% of men believe they could beat a kangaroo, which is odd, given that we have literal video evidence of a regular guy winning in a fist fight with a Kangaroo, and as far as I can tell, no evidence whatsoever of a human being winning a bare knuckle brawl against a chimpanzee. 

So what would lead these gentlemen to this conclusion? Truly, a lack of humility. You overestimate your abilities, and you way way underestimate the abilities of a chimpanzee, which is perfectly capable of tying your neck in a knot. I'm not even going to include a link to chimpanzee caused injuries, but they're not pretty.

In that survey, 8% of american men and 2% of British men believe that they could beat a lion in an unarmed fight. That number is really zero percent. But you know who would be happy with that overconfidence? The lion would. 

Truly, the lion would relish the idea of easily killed food showing up and posturing, trying to start something. The lion would be thrilled if you showed up and started swinging at it. After all, most prey runs, hides, swims or flies away, and the lion has to chase it. Most prey has worked out by now that a lion will make you go away pretty quickly, and you don't really want to try tangling with it. But that 8% is a godsend. A very tasty godsend. 

We are enjoined by the reading from 1 Peter to humble ourselves, and to be realistic with ourselves. We are told to humble ourselves in the presence of the great shepherd of the sheep, for good reason. The reason given is that there is a roaring lion prowling around seeking whom he may devour. Friend, do you fancy your chances in an unarmed fight against a roaring lion? Sure, you don't. Hopefully you're not in that 8%. Hopefully you're in the 92% of people who know that a lion would devastate you very very quickly indeed. That's why you take precautions, of being where lions aren't, of avoiding them and arming yourself. That's why you, if you were to be in the area where they are, would travel with someone experienced and armed themselves. If you go out into the savanna with chest puffed out daring the lion to fight you, it'll destroy you right away. 

If you know that about the lions, you should also know that about the devil. The devil is a roaring lion, prowling around, seeking whom he may devour. He's very interested in dragging you away, and removing all trace of you. If you are full of yourself, if you believe that you are the 8%, the devil is happy for you to try your luck. And I would wager that the numbers for people who believe that they could take on the devil is far far higher than those who believe they could take on a lion. Lion numbers are 8%, devil numbers have got to be around 40%, or even higher. Humans vs the prince of darkness, and humans believe that  they can win. Part of the reason that church attendance is down, that observance is reduced, is because people legitimately don't believe that there is a risk. They believe that they can overcome the devil and all his works and all his ways with their own force of will. 

But a great deal of what we acknowledge is that from the beginning until now, the serpent, the dragon, the lion are things that overwhelm us when we fight them alone. When it's just us, with our plucky attitudes and dismissal of any danger at all, we get destroyed rapidly. And that hubris and overconfidence is what the devil wants. What he doesn't want is for you to be careful, cautious, prudent, and humble. He doesn't want you humbling yourself and being obedient to the great shepherd of the sheep. He would much rather that you trust you own strength. But humble yourself, understand who you are, who the devil is, and who Christ is, and you will find yourself, rapidly, in a space of protection. Why do we get baptized, why do we take the Lord's Supper, why are we in worship at all except to acknowledge that we are people who cannot free ourselves, who cannot protect ourselves, and who are incapable of fighting against the one who wants to destroy us. But Jesus has overcome the devil already. He insists on calling himself the shepherd because he knows how much we need his help and assistance, and how helpless we are on our own. But with Christ, with his weapons and experience, with his skill and strength, we can make a stand against the evil one. 

Rank communism

When our reading from Acts comes up, as it does every few years, it's time to talk about communism. For when you read through the pericopes from Acts, communism rears its red head. 

Now, there are a lot (and I do mean a lot) of generally conservative Christians who will be opposed to communism in all its forms, which is a big ask, given what is contained within the readings. When it says that the disciples were distributing all the proceeds of all the property that people had as any had need, it's hard for anyone to say that the principle 'from each according to his ability, to each according to its needs' is against God and scripture. It's not. Like it's really not. But if you have a knee-jerk reaction against communism, you'll find that you're rejecting, you know, something that the disciples directly did in scripture. The foundation of the community that the disciples led in the first century was communistic, plain and simple. You may not like the label, but it was exactly that.

So why does communism fail, if it's in scripture, and is part of the first community of believers? Well, it's all about the base assumptions, and we'll move on from there.

You essentially have to start out from realistic principles before you can go any further.  If you don't, then you literally can propose a universe in which chimpanzees will be likely to be observant communists. Which they won't. They'll be far more likely to be good cannibals than good communists. But they won't all work, combine all their resources and so on and so on. It won't come together. If we're going to look at communism, and to discuss why it won't work, the reason for it is that it's based on a lack of understanding in human nature. The idea was that people would work, and work collectively for the good of everyone, and would be content to socialize profits and so on. But any conception of communism sort of falls apart at the first hurdle of human nature. 

In the church, we understand that human beings are by nature sinful and unclean. That is, they cannot be trusted to share and distribute properly without the idea that they might very well steal and keep for themselves. The essential problem with communism isn't that the individual workers would be bad at being communists - in many ways they'd be okay. If you're working in a factory, it doesn't matter to you too much who owns it. But the real rot settles in at the top. 

The criticism of communism from the 20th century and beyond was always that those on the top, the commissars, the politburo, would always have a world that was unequal to the max. All animals, as they say, are equal, but some are more equal than others. The ordinary soviet was expected to be a good hard worker, and expected to give his labor to the society and so on, but those in charge would get awfully comfy. It became very quickly caviar and champagne for the politburo on the top, but nothing but grinding labor and breadlines for those on the bottom, and that didn't change much over the course of the soviet union. Essentially, if you're counting on someone to distribute goods and resources equitably, you're going to have to count on them to be good, well meaning people. Which they probably aren't. 

That's not fair. They probably start out with the absolute best of intentions, but the world has a habit of getting in the way. And what that means is that things start out well enough, but when you give people power and authority over others, there's a good chance that they'll fall apart, as they do. They literally can't be trusted not to take all those goods and services, and funnel them to themselves. 

The only real prescription is to understand from the beginning that even the people who you have in charge to help out with everything won't be doing a very trustworthy job with it. You have to start understand that literally everyone is a flawed human who is essentially up to no good.

Once you figure that out, then everything else makes more sense. If communism is built up off of the idea that a utopia is possible, and that you will one day not have the poor with you, then you'll be disappointed very rapidly, given how the ideals run smack into the reality of humanity. Your utopia runs aground because it doesn't deal with the harsh world of humans as they are.

But the scriptures do. Which is why the Bible, and the disciples, will tell you that it's very unlikely indeed that people will do things out of the goodness of their hearts. People are sinful, and that's why they need the governance that they get. They literally cannot be relied on to do the right thing, which is a fact of life, and the sooner we work that out, the sooner we can get past the communism vs capitalism idea, and get back to the idea from scripture: that you are called upon to do what you have to do with those who are around you. In reality, the Christian faith is less concerned with capitalism vs communism, and more concerned with what you do as an individual person. That is, you have a chance in this world to do the right thing, to be a neighbor to those who are directly around you. At any moment you have been placed in an environment where helpful, important things are right in front of you to do, and you can do them, or not. But you know that it's not up to the politburo or the commissars to take care of all utopia for you, but rather for you to step boldly into the world that you have been placed into. Whether a communist or capitalist society, your neighbor will need you regardless. Don't wait for all things to be made right. If you believe that resources should be distributed, you have resources to distribute. If you believe that the poor should be fed, you have food. If you believe that things should be more equitable, then make things more equitable .If you don't want that to be your problem, then you'll understand how the very very rich feel. But they have the same responsibility that you do, just on a larger scale. To provide for the needs that they see.